AS1 FaceOff
by Denise Felt
Summary: Commander Straker is forced to deal with his least favorite person after he suffers a meltdown: Dr. Jackson.


**Face-Off**

**(A UFO Story)**

by Denise Felt 2010

**Prologue**

The dictionary defined a face-off as 'an open confrontation, encounter, or showdown between two opposing players in a game or contest.' Meg Wheland tended to define it a little more strongly. To her, a true face-off was when two main players with differing agendas went head to head over an issue – both convinced of their stand and both determined not to back down. For Meg, face-offs usually ended with somebody dead. Or court-martialed. Or both.

Normally, that wasn't a problem. People died all the time. If they had the honor of at least dying for something they believed in, then kudos for them. But when the two people facing off were both important to you – both vital to everything you thought or did – then things suddenly got really tense.

Meg threw down her headset and got up from her terminal, heading for the bathroom. If things were going to go the way she was pretty sure they were going to go, she was in for a long night. She'd best be ready for it.

**Chapter 1**

He woke in a small white room, wearing the thin cotton pajamas he preferred rather than the usual backless hospital robe. He wasn't hooked to an IV, which meant that whatever had occurred hadn't been too serious. But as he sat up on the bed and dropped his feet to the cold floor, he saw that his hands were covered with numerous small cuts. He stared at them for a long time, trying to figure out how they had gotten that way. But his mind remained blank.

Finally, he glanced around the room. Even for a hospital room, it was sparse. There were no machines, none of the fancy equipment that were the usual backdrop for a hospital room. In fact, other than the bed, a bolted-down chair, and a small washstand in the corner, the room was completely empty. And he realized with an icy chill that he wasn't in a regular hospital room.

He was in a detention cell.

Oh, it wasn't a normal detention cell. He could see small panels set low in the walls where outlets were available if needed for whatever medical equipment might be required in an emergency. And the overhead lighting wasn't the lowered soft wattage for detention cells, a wattage the experts said encouraged prisoners not to revolt. Instead it was the over-bright glare of a hospital room.

So. He _was_ in the hospital. Just not in one of the regular rooms. He was in one of the few special rooms they kept for those prisoners being detained who'd caused enough trouble that they had managed to injure themselves and needed hospital care. He looked down at his hands again. Turned them this way and that. Studied the patterns of tiny cuts as if they might give him a clue what he'd done to get them. Finally, he clenched them in frustration, ignoring the multitude of small pains that went through his hands at that action.

Because he couldn't remember. At all.

When Dr. Jackson entered the room a while later, Straker realized it was going to be one of those nights. Why couldn't he have gotten Schroeder, who was just as brilliant a doctor, but who didn't have fifteen hidden agendas fermenting in his brain all the time? Schroeder, who was gentle and caring. The commander sighed. No one _ever_ accused Jackson of being gentle or caring.

The doctor seated himself in the single chair, crossed his legs, and set his clipboard on his upraised knee. He drew his pen from the breast pocket of his smock and finally looked over at the commander sitting on the side of the bed.

"Well, Commander," he said in his suave Slavic voice, the one that carried just a hint of insolence behind every word so that Straker had to grit his teeth to keep from hitting him. "How are you feeling?"

Straker favored him with a disgusted glare. "How do you think I feel, Jackson? I woke up here with no idea how I got here. What happened?"

The doctor frowned at him. "Are you saying that you have no memory of what occurred in your office, Commander?"

"Yes. I assume I somehow injured my hands. Was anyone else hurt?"

"No. No one else was harmed. Lt. Johnson was a little frightened, but I believe there will be no lasting psychological damage."

Straker shook his head, trying to clear it. "The lieutenant was there? Anyone else?"

"No, Commander. You were alone. I understand that she only came into the office to give you a report. Do you remember her handing it to you? Or even perhaps the details of that report?"

"I don't recall any of it, Doctor. Which makes me wonder what's going on here? Is this some twisted game you're playing? Because if so, I"m not interested."

The doctor leaned back in the chair and regarded him with a raised brow. "And why would I do that?" he asked in astonishment.

The commander's lips compressed angrily. "I have no idea. But it makes no sense for me to be here, Jackson! I wasn't under the influence of some hallucinogenic rock the aliens planted. I wasn't caught inside a second of time trying to fight my way out. Nothing was going on that would cause me to blackout or whatever it was I did. Damn it, I was reading reports!"

"Ah!" the doctor said with a small nod, writing a notation on his clipboard. "Then you do recall something of what transpired. You remember what you were doing in your office."

Straker frowned at him. "It's usually what I'm doing in my office, Doctor. Ninety-five percent of my job is reading reports."

"Good. Good. Do you have any recollection of Lt. Johnson entering your office?"

The commander thought about it for a while, but his mind was stubbornly blank. It made no sense. Unless this was somehow all an elaborate trick. But he could see no reason why the doctor would play such a vicious prank on him. What could he possibly hope to gain?

"No," he admitted finally. "I don't have any memory of her coming into the office. The last thing I remember is reading. Then I woke up in here."

"Interesting."

Straker's lips thinned ominously. "I'm so glad you think so!"

After a few minutes of tense silence, the doctor said, "Commander, you are a brilliant thinker. Highest in your class at MIT, and sought after by more than one of the nation's top think tanks at one time. If you look at the evidence in this room, what do you think transpired in your office? Not what you can recall, but what you deduce happened by the facts you can see before you."

Straker's glare met with a calm stare, and eventually, in spite of himself, the commander considered the puzzle placed before him. He really couldn't see the doctor concocting some grandiose scheme to test him. It wasn't his style, for one thing. He was both more cunning and less obvious than that. So if he ruled that out, what remained was that Jackson was telling the truth. Something had happened to him while he was working in his office. Something so catastrophic that he had ended up in a hospital detention room with cuts on his hands.

He gave a great sigh. At least no one else had been hurt.

"Well," he said hesitantly, trying to get a picture of it in his mind, which was not going out of its way to cooperate. What was wrong with him? Had the aliens somehow affected his thinking? It was one of his worst nightmares, and the mere thought had him breaking out in a cold sweat. But he couldn't allow panic to take over. He had to work his way through this. Reasonably. Logically. "It would seem that I could not have blacked out, even though my mind is saying that I must have."

"Why is that?" Jackson asked quietly.

Straker spread his hands. "Because I had to have been awake to do what was done to my hands, of course."

"Yes. That is good, Commander. What else can you deduce?"

He took a deep breath. "Whatever I did was violent enough to land me here, instead of in a regular hospital room."

"Yes. Yes. Go on."

After a tense silence, the commander shrugged. "There's nothing else, Jackson. I can speculate all I want, but I really can't build more of a scenario than that from the evidence I have at present. Did you interview Lt. Johnson?"

"Yes, Commander. She was interviewed."

"Then why don't you just take her word for what happened? Why the guessing game? She would certainly be a credible witness. Where's the problem?"

Dr. Jackson sighed. "Commander Straker, let me ask you something. Would you be willing to simply allow the most important person in your organization to suffer from blackouts, periods of lost time that he could not account for nor afterward recall, and not do all in your power to find out why?"

Straker swallowed. "No."

Jackson nodded. "Then you see why I cannot take Lt. Johnson's statement as the final answer for this episode, Commander. I must hear what happened from you. Because only you can account for those nine minutes that you've somehow forgotten. Only you know why the incident even occurred. And only you can lower the barrier you have placed in your mind that is keeping you from sharing that knowledge with others. This is the only effective way to keep such an occurrence from repeating itself. You must face that which your mind has decided it does not wish to face.

"SHADO is being forced to deal with a crisis that can cripple it and perhaps even destroy it altogether. And that crisis has been caused by you, Commander. It is taking place right now.

"In your mind."

**Chapter 2**

"Need a break?" Keith asked as he entered the small lab with a cup of coffee in his hand.

Meg turned to him with a grin and a headshake. "No. I'm good, thanks. How's Ayshea?"

The communications officer sat on the edge of the computer table with a sigh. "Pretty shook up still. Well, who can blame her? Commander Straker is quite formidable. Seeing him out of control like that can be really terrifying."

She looked at him a little more closely. "That's right. You were here during those incidents he mentioned: the episode with the alien rock and the frozen time fiasco. I can't begin to imagine what that was like for all of you."

He sipped his coffee for a minute in silence. Then he said, "Probably the most frightening moments of my life – bar none. I still have nightmares about it every once in a while. I don't know if there's any way to explain how heart-stopping it is to see someone who's never at a loss, never stumped, never defeated, suddenly lose that tight control that has kept it all together against impossible odds for so long. I mean, if he loses it, what hope is there for the rest of us? You know?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I know. My heart was in my throat during that whole scene in his office. I think the worst part was that it made no sense. Not one moment of it seemed reasonable. And I still have no idea what could have triggered it. Dr. Jackson has gone over everything that was in the office with a magnifying glass. It's all normal. Nothing was tampered with. Everything was fine. It shouldn't have happened, Keith."

"But it did."

Meg sighed. "Yeah. It did. And if Jackson can't get the commander to acknowledge what occurred . . . and deal with whatever it was . . . !"

Keith shook his head and stood up, tossing his empty cup into the waste can. "Don't even go there, Meg. That way lies madness. Madness, chaos, and death."

"Is it possible my coffee was drugged?" Straker asked as Jackson reentered the room an hour later.

"With the amnesia drug perhaps?" the doctor said drily as he took his seat in the chair once more.

The commander gave him a tight-lipped glare. "I'm serious, Jackson. Is it possible that it was the amnesia drug combined with a narcotic? Something that might have induced a violent outburst, then caused me to forget it ever happened?"

"Plausible. Very plausible, Commander," replied the doctor meditatively. "But we checked your coffee. It was untouched."

Straker ran a hand through his hair, slightly disheveling it. And making the small cuts on that hand throb for a moment. He looked closer at his hands. The cuts were not uniform in length or depth, but seemed to come from several angles and at several degrees of strength. And in order for the cuts to have been so numerous, it would have taken something quite large to have been destroyed. He had a glimpse of what that something might have been –

– then his mind shut down mid-thought, causing him to gasp at the suddenness of it.

Dr. Jackson noted his sudden pallor, the inadvertent widening of his eyes, and awaited events. He made several notations on his clipboard, but ventured no remarks, giving the commander time to work out possible scenarios for himself.

After a few more minutes, Straker spoke again. "Could something have been in my food?"

Jackson's lips quirked very slightly. This was an opening he'd been waiting for. "It would hardly have mattered even if arsenic had been put in your meal, Commander, since you didn't touch it." He did not look at the commander when he answered, but kept writing on his clipboard.

But Straker was quite aware of the implied criticism. "My stomach has been rather upset of late," he explained. "Food hasn't sounded good, and on those occasions when it does, that changes once it's in front of me. Perhaps I'm getting an ulcer."

"I am quite certain that if you do not have one now, you are well on your way to creating one. Are you aware of what your diet has consisted of for the past two weeks, Commander?"

Straker frowned at him. "What do you mean? You've been watching what I'm eating? Why? Why would you be keeping such close tabs on me?"

Jackson did not look up from his clipboard, where his pen continued to write. "It is my job to keep close tabs on you, Commander. You are Earth's only hope for a brighter future. A future without the threat of alien invasion. It has been some time since we have entertained the naive notion that SHADO could survive without you. You are vital to Earth's safety. Therefore, everything you do is important. Because even the smallest change in your daily routine can alter the balance, and in doing so, affect that safety."

The man on the side of the bed swallowed carefully. He knew that what Jackson was saying was true. He'd tried – damned if he hadn't tried! – to find someone who could be capable of taking over SHADO if something happened to him. When, really. _When_ something happened to him. Because it was all really just a matter of time. Either the aliens would find a way to get rid of him for good, or he would suffer the massive breakdown Jackson continually warned him about. Or if he managed somehow to stave off both those eventualities, he would get old and have to retire. And he'd have to be replaced.

But the overriding question was: by who? Who had his unique combination of leadership qualities and scientific knowledge that had been so necessary in staying one step ahead of their vicious adversary? Who else could second guess the enemy to the point that their advanced technology wasn't an assurance of an easy victory? He knew of no one. And none of the military leaders of any of the nations that supported SHADO had anyone like that in their corps to offer either.

So he knew it was down to him. And he had a limited amount of time – ten, fifteen more years at the most – in which to work. And then what?

But he tried to have hope, tried to believe that when the time came, a replacement would be there to step in. Nature abhorred a vacuum, after all. When one tree died, smaller trees surrounding it grew stronger to take up the slack. He had to believe that. No other option was acceptable.

He had known that Jackson was as aware of his importance to SHADO as he was. But he hadn't realized that Jackson – being Jackson – would have found it necessary to watch him so closely. Damn him! Was he to surrender his one final possession to his job? The one thing he'd managed to protect no matter what else was taken from him over the years? Was his privacy even now no longer his?

"Damn you!" he said quietly, but fiercely.

The doctor sighed. "Commander, I am not your enemy. Perhaps someday you will recognize that fact. Then perhaps things will go much more smoothly between us."

Straker laughed harshly. "Not in this lifetime, Jackson! You think I don't see you quite clearly, for all your masks within masks within masks? You're so mired in your schemes that you have no ability to see outside that. You'll never be a friend of mine. You don't have it in you to be. My friends are loyal, and you don't know the meaning of the word."

After a long moment, the doctor spoke. "And does it make you feel better to lash out at me, Commander? Does that somehow make your own masks less terrible? That part of you that you've hidden away – even from yourself? Does it feel safer now that your mind has focused on someone else?"

The commander barely stopped himself from lunging off the bed and going for his throat. Instead, he clamped down hard on his instinctive reaction and turned his face to the wall. He stared at its blank surface for some time, bringing his breathing slowly back to normal. Emptying his mind of its fury at finding out that he was just one more mouse in Jackson's maze.

_Damn him to hell!_

No. Quiet. Silence. Nothing.

Finally he asked the question that he needed to have answered. Because somehow he had lost track and didn't know the answer himself. Quietly, he said, "What has my diet been for the past two weeks, Doctor?"

"Coffee."

Straker winced. "I see. Well, it's the only thing that sits well on my stomach."

"Commander, you have it backward. Your strict diet of coffee has caused your stomach problems. That is the reason other food isn't sitting well. Your digestive system has been traumatized by your abuse of it."

"What is your recommendation?"

"I'm not recommending anything, Commander," Dr. Jackson said briskly. "I'm telling you straight out that you have to cut coffee completely out of your diet."

"What? Not a chance! Everyone at SHADO drinks coffee!"

"That's as may be, but do they drink it to the exclusion of all else?"

And Straker fumed, knowing he was in the wrong and unable to find a way out of it. "I needed the caffeine," he admitted in a soft voice.

Jackson's pen paused momentarily, then continued on as if nothing significant had been said. "And why is that, Commander?" the doctor asked drily, goading him. If antagonism got the responses he needed, then that's what he would use. Commander Straker had ever been a very tough nut to crack.

Straker looked at his hands. "I've had . . . some difficulty sleeping lately. Nightmares that I've awakened from sweating and terrified, with no recollection of what had occurred in the dream. I guess I felt that if I worked longer hours until exhaustion overtook me, the dreams would stop. Or at least, I'd sleep through them and wake up in the morning with no memory of them at all."

Jackson's brow was raised as he stared at the commander. But he said nothing for a time, waiting for those expressive blue eyes to meet his first. When they finally did, he said, "And when were you planning to inform your doctor of these nightmares?"

The commander gave a quiet sigh. Once more, he knew himself to be in the wrong. It was standard procedure to document all nightmares and turn them in to the Medical Centre for psychological analysis. It was an integral part of every operative's psych evaluation each three months to go over their own nightmares and discuss possible meanings and interpretations.

It wasn't that Straker discounted the importance of studying dreams. He knew they found vital clues to the inner workings of the mind by analyzing such things. And that was fine in the abstract. But on a personal level, he had absolutely no desire to interpret his dreams. Most were so horrific and nauseating that his mind immediately blanked them out upon waking. He dealt with enough hell during his waking hours. He certainly didn't need to explore the hell he found himself in during sleep. In all the years he'd been running SHADO, he'd never once turned in a dream sheet for documentation and analysis.

It wasn't just that he considered it a gross invasion of privacy to discuss with others what his mind thought about while not under his conscious control. It was that, even more than that, he didn't want to know. Simply couldn't imagine any good coming from knowing the thoughts that occupied his mind when he couldn't stop it from thinking whatever it wanted. He'd always been aware – from a very young age – that brilliance had its price. And that price was having a mind that went places and considered things no one was equipped to handle on any emotional level. He'd learned early to guard his own mind. He'd had to.

From his own reckless and terrifying thoughts.

"Commander?"

He shook his head wearily. "I can't, Doctor. I can't go there."

Jackson made a notation on his clipboard before responding. "At the moment? Or ever?"

Straker leaned back against the wall behind his bed, exhausted by this waking nightmare he found himself in and knowing no way to end it, so that he could wake up and get on with his life. "Let's just leave it at 'for now,' shall we?"

The doctor's large eyes searched his haggard face for a long moment. Then he said, "Very well, Commander. We will leave it for now. However, I have one question that I require you to answer."

The commander tensed, knowing that Jackson would make him pay – and pay dearly – for not discussing what he wanted to discuss. "What is that, Doctor?" he asked grimly.

Dr. Jackson made certain that Straker met his eyes before asking, "What happened two weeks ago to precipitate this crisis?"

**Chapter 3**

The lab door handle moved and Meg turned from the monitor in surprise. She'd locked the door. It was SOP for monitoring the commander for Dr. Jackson. Only his most trusted assistants were ever given this duty or even allowed in this lab. And for a reason. Most of the commander's day, no matter how routine, was spent in extremely classified pursuits. The vast majority of operatives could never be entrusted with that level of sensitive information. Therefore, only a rare few were given this duty, or indeed, even knew of this lab's existence within the walls of HQ. And none of them were on duty at present but her. And Keith. But he was at HQ's communications station for this shift.

But then she saw who had entered, and she grinned. "Hi!"

"Hi, yourself," he said in his rich voice as he relocked the door and came over to where she sat at the terminal. He wasted no time on preliminaries, but reached down and kissed her deeply, drawing it out, teasing her into the response he wanted.

"Alec!" she sighed as she surfaced somewhat dizzily from his embrace, her headset askew. "I'm working."

"Hmmm. Too bad," he murmured against her throat. "Should I go?"

She gasped as he found a pleasure point. "Um, well. You have a high enough clearance to be here, but I have to swear you to secrecy regarding anything you hear or see. Jackson's orders. You know the drill."

He did indeed. He'd been shocked when he first began pursuing Meg to find out just what Jackson had been doing behind the scenes of HQ. And someday soon he planned to take his best friend for a long drive and tell him what the good doctor had been up to regarding his personal space. But for now, it was more advantageous to seem cooperative. Especially given this current crisis. He needed to know what Ed was going through. And what methods Jackson was using to force him to talk. "You have my word," he whispered into her ear as he nibbled on the lobe. "As a gentleman."

Swiftly he maneuvered himself so that he sat beneath her on the chair, and she was in his lap. He didn't cease his bombardment of her senses for several minutes, utilizing mouth, tongue, and hands in an effort to cloud her thoughts. He was quite successful; but then, he usually was when it came to handling a woman. He'd spent years perfecting his technique, after all.

Once he had her pliant in his arms, he eased off her headset. It was doubtful that she'd taken in more than a few words of what was being said on the monitor anyway. Then he turned her so that she was straddling him. She gave him a slumbrous look, her tongue between her teeth, and his grin widened as she unzipped his pants. It paid to love your work, he always thought. And he was a very hard worker.

"Nothing happened."

Dr. Jackson sighed. It seemed that nothing short of a sledgehammer would break through that solid wall the commander had put up in his mind to protect his secrets. Well. Sledgehammers had their uses. But if he was forced to go that route, he had to take care. He needed Straker to still be capable of running SHADO once this investigation was through. And sledgehammers could do a lot of damage.

He flipped through his papers for a moment until he found the one he sought. "Perhaps this will refresh your memory," he said drily. "Fourteen days ago, HQ dealt with a sighting. Three UFOs on an intercept course to Earth with trajectories that would take them to North Dakota or thereabouts. Hmmm. They seem to like that region for some reason. All three were shot down, two by Moonbase's interceptors and the third by Sky 4."

Straker shrugged. "I remember the attack."

"Very well. Two days later, HQ had another sighting, this time one UFO on a heading toward Moonbase itself. Perhaps an effort to destroy the tracking station. It managed to take out one interceptor before exploding under the attack of the remaining two interceptors." He looked up at the commander again.

"Yes. I remember it well. What's your point, Doctor?"

Jackson almost smiled at that sarcastic tone. It was always a dangerous thing to taunt the lion. But if you were very careful, you might just get him to say more than he planned. "Well, Commander," he said suavely. Insolently. "You said that nothing happened two weeks ago. I've just shown you that something did occur. Just in case your memory has more gaps in it than just those nine minutes we are aware of."

Straker's hands clenched on the edge of the hospital bed, making every tiny cut sing with pain. "Don't play with me, Jackson. You know what I meant. Nothing happened in my life two weeks ago. Outside of work. If you're keeping tabs on me, you already know this."

"Ah! But that's just it, Commander. We don't know what goes on once you leave the studio grounds. Gen. Henderson has not yet authorised us to monitor your home. He may decide to agree to such surveillance after this episode, however. If we had eyes and ears already inside your house, we would more effectively be able to deal now with whatever trauma you're refusing to face."

Straker glared at him, but inwardly gave a sigh of relief that his home was still inviolate. He wasn't positive that he could trust the sincerity of the doctor's words, realizing that Jackson might simply be trying to salvage as much of his surveillance as possible if Straker decided to fight him over it once this crisis was dealt with. But for now, it gave him a small reprieve from the feeling that his every move was being watched. And considering how stressed he felt at the moment, any relief was welcome. He wasn't going to question it too closely.

At least, not yet.

Jackson sat forward to say something, but stopped as the door to the cell slid open. An orderly entered carrying a tray of food, which he brought over to the commander and set up beside him on the bed.

"Thank you," Straker told him.

"Yes, sir." The orderly gave him a nod of respect before leaving the room, ignoring the doctor as if he didn't exist.

Jackson wasn't bothered by this treatment at all. He knew that most of the staff in the Medical Centre despised him. He found such feelings useful, since they went a long way to ensuring that he was not disturbed while he was working on one of his projects. He surreptitiously watched the commander check out the food on his tray, making small notes on his clipboard as he did so.

"What is this?" Straker finally asked, spooning up a bit of the broth with a frown.

Jackson smiled humorlessly. "I believe from the smell that it's chicken noodle soup, Commander. The cure-all for everything that ails you."

Straker laid the spoon back down. "I highly doubt it."

The doctor's smile widened. "Come now. Surely your mother made you chicken noodle soup when you were a boy? It's a standard, even in my country."

Straker glanced at him in surprise. "Really? My mother never made it. She did, however, make a wonderful clam chowder. I've never found a chef who can duplicate it."

"Ah!" nodded the doctor. "A mother's secret recipe."

"Perhaps," Straker conceded, smiling slightly in memory as he absently took a sip from his cup. Then he blinked and looked closer at the contents. He sighed and said, "And what is this, Jackson?"

"Weak tea, Commander."

Straker set it down with every appearance of loathing. "Extremely weak tea. Water would be better."

The doctor raised a brow. "Would you prefer a glass of water?"

The commander gritted his teeth and set the tray from him. "You know, I don't get it!" he said angrily. "How come you never get on Alec about his drinking? Coffee's nothing compared to alcohol. Why don't you go bother him?"

In the lab, Col. Freeman glanced up from stroking Meg's shoulder and said, "Hey!"

She giggled and leaned closer to the screen to hear more.

Jackson merely smiled his most irritating smile. "When his drinking begins to affect his liver, perhaps I'll speak to him. Or when alcohol reaches a point where it adds undue stress to his life, then perhaps I'll say something to him. But he handles alcohol quite well for someone who indulges so frequently. I can only assume that he has the constitution of an ox."

Straker grimaced, embarrassed for his outburst. "He does," he said. He hated the thought that he might be acting like a sulky child, but damn it! He wanted a cup of coffee, not this – this _swill!_ He glanced at the doctor from under his lashes as if to gauge the possibility of changing his mind. But Jackson only smirked back at him, obviously waiting for just such a request. The commander sighed and took another sip of the tea. He had to admit, it was better than drinking water.

Marginally.

Jackson said, "Tell me, Commander. Do you consider yourself a religious man?"

"What?"

"A religious man. Would you say that you were?"

Straker stared at him in bewilderment for a moment, then said, "No. Why?"

"I find that very interesting," the doctor said, making a few notes on his clipboard.

"I can't imagine why," the commander said dismissively, toying with a cracker on his tray.

"Well, you don't drink," Jackson explained. "You haven't smoked in years, and other than an addiction to coffee that seems to have gotten out of hand lately, you seem to have very few vices. That kind of personality tends to be strongly religious."

"I don't have anything against drinking, Jackson. I just don't do it myself."

"Why not? Surely you could use an opportunity to unwind after a long day working? A glass of wine – even a stiff drink – could help you do that."

Straker's lips thinned impatiently. "I have no desire to deal with the loss of control that comes from drinking, Doctor. I should think that would please you, as least as far as security at SHADO is concerned. But apparently nothing I do will please you tonight."

The doctor sighed. "Commander, too much control can be as much of a problem as not enough."

"That's ridiculous!"

"Yes, I realize that you don't see it that way," the doctor said. "But just look at your situation now."

Straker frowned at him. "Wait a minute. I thought I was here because I had somehow _lost_ control."

"Yes, you did. But because you keep such a tight rein on yourself, Commander, once the episode was over, your mind seized control once more, even more tightly than before. That is why you have the blank spot instead of the memory of those nine minutes. Your mind has clamped down even harder to compensate for the momentary loss of control you experienced."

Straker shook his head. "That sounds like a bunch of psychological mumbo-jumbo, Jackson. I can't believe that you would seriously advocate a lack of self-control."

"There is a middle ground, Commander," the doctor said, but not as if he expected to be heeded. "That you don't seem to be able to find." He sat back in the chair. "But I am curious about that strict moral code you follow. Did you have any religious training in your background?"

Reluctantly, Straker said, "I went to church as a child."

"Ah! Yes. Yes, I can see that. Did you enjoy it?"

The commander shrugged. "Is any of this even important, Jackson?"

Dr. Jackson made a notation on his clipboard, hiding the pleasure in his eyes at the commander's reluctance to answer. Such a reaction could only mean that the subject was one of great importance to him. "Commander, do you wish to get out of this room and return to your office?"

Straker stared at him for a moment, weighing the question for hidden traps. "Is that a trick question?" he finally asked.

"I meant it in all seriousness," the doctor said. "If you want to be released from here and get back to your reports, you'll answer my questions without constantly defying me. Believe me, Commander. My greatest desire is to have you back in your office reading those reports. I need you to work with me to make that happen. Fighting me every step of the way will only prolong your stay here." He shrugged carelessly and added, "But the choice is up to you."

The room was silent for several minutes, and the doctor took the opportunity to add a few lengthier notes to his clipboard.

But finally Straker stirred and said quietly, "Yes. I enjoyed going to church."

Jackson nodded. "I thought you might. What did you like most about it?"

The commander stared at his hands, trying to think back that far. "I suppose, the sense of order it gave me. The peace of knowing that everything had its place in the universe."

"Yes. I can see where that might appeal to you. When did you stop going to church, Commander?"

Straker ran a finger around the rim of the teacup, not really aware of what he was doing. His thoughts were in the past. "I was ten, I think. My father didn't like the questions I'd been asking, and he decided that I didn't need to go any longer."

"How did that make you feel?" the doctor asked softly.

Straker's shrug was a trifle jerky, as though in an effort to throw off hurt. "I didn't mind so much. It gave me more time for other things."

"And your mother? I assume you went to church with her. How did she feel when you stopped going?"

The commander was silent for a while, still toying with the teacup. "She understood," he said finally. "At least, she never brought it up again. But then, in our house, you didn't argue with my father's decisions."

"Did you miss it? That peace? The sense of order?"

"I . . ." Straker shook his head to clear it.

"Tell me, Commander!" the doctor demanded suddenly, his voice harsh. "Tell me how it made you feel to be denied that place of peace in your life! Tell me what you thought of your father for taking that haven away from you! _Tell me!_"

"I hated him!" Straker burst out, glaring at Jackson with tears in his eyes. They began to run down his cheeks as he stormed, "He didn't understand at all! He didn't ever _once_ understand me! And when . . . and when my mother died the next spring, I thought God was punishing me because I stopped going! I thought he took her from me to teach me a lesson. All of a sudden, he seemed just like my father!" He took a deep breath, fighting to stop the tears. "So I never went back."

Jackson waited a few moments, giving the commander time to regain his composure. Then he asked quietly, "Do you still believe God was punishing you?"

The commander leaned back against the wall behind his bed, emotionally drained, staring at the blank wall across from him. He said dully, "Does it matter? It isn't as though I would ever go back to church. I'm rather like those vampires in the B-rated horror flicks the studio puts out in such numbers. I have far too much blood on my hands to ever be able to enter a holy place again."

**Chapter 4**

Meg laid back against Alec's bare chest, feeling like the cat who ate the cream. Her mother had often maintained that older lovers were the best, because they had a much wider experience level than their younger counterparts. To which, Meg had always responded, "Ick!" But now, having enjoyed the benefits of having an older lover for a little while now, she could honestly admit that her mother had a point. Alec made her other lovers seem like schoolboys in comparison. Meg didn't know how long she'd be able to keep his interest. After all, he was known throughout the organization for his capriciousness. But she was grateful that his flighty gaze had landed on her, even if she only got to keep him for a short time.

She'd learned a lot.

He nuzzled her neck and made her sigh with bliss. He seemed to have a neverending supply of energy, which worked well with her youthful vivacity. She'd had to set aside the headset a while ago and just turn up the volume level, so that she could monitor the detention cell while being otherwise occupied. It took a bit of multi-tasking to accomplish, and she wasn't positive how effective she had been as an operative during certain moments. But overall, she had to admit that she had managed it. And the fact that Alec wasn't in a hurry to leave, but seemed content to share her afterglow with her made her want to curl up and purr. She ran her fingers up and down his strong arms while she watched the screen.

Dr. Jackson had left the room for a short time, returning with an orderly who traded trays with the one on the hospital bed.

Straker glanced at it disinterestedly at first, then again with a slight interest, and finally looked at the doctor in surprise.

Jackson raised an ironic brow. "It hardly does any of us any good, Commander, if we bring you food you won't eat." With that, he gestured for the orderly to leave with the old tray. He resumed his seat in the room's one chair.

Straker's lips twitched at the dry tone, but he picked up the spoon and took a sip of the broth. The taste made his stomach clutch suddenly in hunger for the first time in days, and he brought the tray closer for another sample. After a few minutes, he glanced up and saw Jackson's smirk as he wrote on his clipboard.

"It's actually not a bad chowder," he said a bit defensively.

The doctor kept a straight face as he nodded. "Well, it wasn't as if we had access to your mother's recipe, Commander."

Straker smiled slightly. "I appreciate the effort, Doctor." He reached for his cup and lost the smile. "Now if I could just get something decent to drink."

"There's always water," said the doctor unsympathetically.

The commander gave him a look, but said no more as he drank the weak tea.

After a while, the doctor spoke. "I often wondered why you rarely spoke of your father, Commander. By all accounts, he was considered a very capable pilot and a good officer."

"You want him? You're welcome to him."

"Ah! You blamed him for his treatment of you when you were young."

"No."

Jackson looked up from his notes in surprise. "Oh?"

Strake gave him a cold stare from those expressive eyes. "I blamed him for his treatment of my mother."

"Yes. I see. Did your mother ever complain to you about him?"

Straker smiled as if unable to help himself. "My mother didn't know how to complain. She was the least argumentative person I've ever known. A trait he exploited to the fullest, of course."

The doctor checked his notes. "You left home once you were of legal age, didn't you?"

The commander shook his head, finishing the soup and setting the tray aside. "I left when I was sixteen." At the doctor's obvious surprise, he added, "I graduated early and had a full scholarship to MIT waiting for me."

Dr. Jackson glanced through his notes again. "I was under the impression that your father paid for your education. He certainly had the finances."

"He wanted to. It would have made him sound so magnanimous whenever he was out drinking with his cronies." He sat back on the bed with a hard smile. "I refused to take a penny from him."

"So this was your revenge on him?"

The commander shrugged. "In a way, I guess. But in all honesty, I just couldn't take the thought of him having any further control over my life. My one goal when I left home was to never be like him."

"And do you feel that you've succeeded?" Jackson asked softly.

"Most days, yes," the commander said firmly, then looked away after a moment. "But sometimes . . . I wonder."

"Is today one of those days when you find yourself wondering?"

Straker swallowed. After a long moment, he gave a curt nod. "I . . . realized about a year ago that I was very like him in one respect. I married a woman who looked very much like my mother."

"Do you find that disquieting, Commander?"

Straker glanced at him in surprise. "Isn't it? I mean, Oedipus and all that."

Jackson grinned. "Commander, you will find that most men marry women that remind them in one way or another of their mothers. It is quite normal."

"Really?" Straker thought about that for a minute. "I never knew that. No wonder Alec never married."

"Oh?"

But the commander waved that away. "Did you?" he asked curiously.

Dr. Jackson smiled. "Oh, yes. My wife does not physically resemble my mother, but she has many aspects of her personality that remind me of her."

"You were smart not to be blinded by looks," Straker said with a sigh. "Mary turned out to be nothing at all like my mother under the surface. It took me the longest time to figure out why I couldn't seem to do anything right with her."

"Ah! Your wife did know how to complain," the doctor guessed.

"It was her one main talent," Straker said drily. But after a moment he shook his head. "It wasn't her fault, really. It was right after we married that SHADO took off. We never even got our honeymoon. She had reason to be upset with me, I suppose."

"Which you didn't understand, since you were expecting someone more like your mother."

"Yes." The commander thought back to those stressful years. "I suppose both of us ended up disappointed. Neither one of us got quite what we'd been expecting. Mary was an only child with a doting military father. If she was wanting me to be like him, I was even more of a failure than I thought."

"Do you see yourself as having failed her?"

"Of course, I . . . !" Straker stopped suddenly, his eyes widening as he stared at the doctor.

Jackson gazed impassively back at him.

The commander glanced down at the tray – the empty bowl, the half-empty cup. When he looked back at the doctor, his eyes had hardened to ice. "What did you do?"

"What do you mean, Commander?" the doctor said suavely.

But Straker had caught the telltale blink of those wide Slavic eyes. He flung the tray off the bed, and the contents clattered as they hit the opposite wall. Weak tea dripped down its surface as the commander surged to his feet, his hands clenched at his sides. "Damn you, Jackson! _What did you do to me?_"

**Chapter 5**

"Bastard!" Alec said fiercely under his breath.

Meg looked at him in surprise. "But . . . he's just doing his job!"

Alec stared at her for a moment as if seeing her for the first time. Then he sighed and got up from the chair, setting her aside. "You defend him if you want to," he said as he reached for his clothes. "But all the words in the world won't make what he did anything but wrong."

She was torn for a moment, understanding his loyalty to his friend, but also quite aware of the difficult task the doctor faced in getting their uncommunicative commander to talk. But as she watched his face as he quickly dressed, she knew he would never see her side of it.

"I'm sorry, Alec."

He shook his head, denying any need for her to apologize. She was female. Of course she wouldn't comprehend such a basic betrayal. He knew from vast experience that underneath their warm, soft exteriors, all women were as cold and heartless as the dark side of the moon.

He gave her a ghost of his charming smile. "Don't worry about it, Meg. I just need some fresh air to wash the stench of Jackson out of my system."

But she knew as the door softly closed behind him that she'd never hold him again.

"What was it?" he demanded, his voice as hard as his expression.

Jackson shrugged calmly, as if all his senses were not on full alert. He had known how risky it would be to compel the commander to speak. But he was fast running out of options, and the wall in the commander's mind had resisted his every effort to remove it any other way.

"It's a milder version of the truth drug we use on resistant prisoners."

"I see. And is that what I am, Jackson? A resistant prisoner?"

The doctor sighed. "No. Which is why we did not use the drug at full strength. Commander, surely you realize how grave this situation is? If I am unable to get you to explain the incident in your office, if I cannot break through that barrier that is keeping those nine minutes from your conscious mind, then you will not leave this room. Is that what you want? To force SHADO to function without its commander? To be deemed unfit for command?"

Suddenly all the tension seeped out of Straker's body, leaving him feeling weak and shaky. He slumped back onto the edge of the bed and met the doctor's worried eyes.

"Maybe I am," he said dispiritedly.

"Maybe you're what, Commander?"

"Unfit for command."

Dr. Jackson stared at him in shock. He wanted to shake the commander out of this unexpected, uncharacteristic despair, but his training took over and instead he said, "What have you done that makes you feel that way?"

Straker sat back on the bed, drawing his legs up and holding onto them like a child. He gazed at the opposite wall as if its blankness was covered in images only he could see. After a while, he gave a deep shudder and said quietly, "I smashed the mural. I picked up my chair and smashed the mural on my wall."

The doctor bit back a huge sigh of relief, slowly sitting back down in his chair. "Why did you do that, Commander?"

He shook his head. "I couldn't . . . I couldn't . . . I just wanted it to stop. It's too late. It's far too late. And I can't fix it. There's no way to fix it."

"Fix what?"

Straker didn't answer for a long moment. Then he turned to the doctor in surprise. "I tried to fix it, didn't I?" He looked at his hands, at the small cuts on them. "I picked up several of the pieces and tried to put it back together again." He rubbed his face wearily. "God! I've lost it. I've really lost it!"

"Actually, Commander, I think you're finally beginning to find it again. What were you trying to stop? The movement of the mural?"

"No. The memories. I couldn't fight off the memories any longer. They kept filling my mind, no matter how hard I tried to push them away. And at night, I would dream . . ." He shook his head to clear it. "It all just became too much."

"Will you tell me at what point it all became too much?"

He sighed, laying his head back against the wall as if it was too much effort to hold it up. "It was that damned report."

"Ah, yes. The report of the UFO sighting that Lt. Johnson brought you. The interceptors were able to destroy it before it got into the atmosphere. What about that upset you?"

"It wasn't that. It was where it was headed."

"I see." Jackson checked one of the papers on his clipboard. "The UFO's trajectory was determined to be near . . ."

"Loch Mhor," Straker said grimly.

"Yes. Loch Mhor in Scotland. Does this place have some significance to you, Commander?"

Straker's smile was full of self-mockery. "Significance? You could say that. We had a UFO incident there years ago, back when HQ was barely up and running."

"Indeed?" Jackson decided it might be a good idea to look up this particular case in the files. He made a notation on his clipboard to do that at his earliest opportunity.

"I sent Alec out to investigate, of course. We were fortunate enough not to lose any men in the ensuing fight. But one of the aliens got away. They found him later in the home of a resident who lived near the lake. He was dead. Apparently the woman took exception to having her home broken into. She shot him with the antique Nitro Express elephant gun that hung above her mantle. It seems her grandfather had been a big game hunter in his time."

Straker stared at the wall for a while in silence, and the doctor waited him out. He had known from the first that whatever had precipitated this crisis was very deep-seated in the commander's psyche. It wouldn't have a quick or easy explanation.

Finally the commander said quietly, "Have you ever heard the phrase about curiosity killing the cat?"

"Yes. I've heard of it."

"That's what undid me. Curiosity. You see, Alec told me the woman's name: Cait Kerr." He glanced at the doctor to see his reaction and nodded when he saw his slight frown of recognition. "Yes, the artist. She wasn't as well known in those days, but I'd been to a gallery in London that featured her work. I even bought one of her 'experiments in light' as she called them for my office. I thought it might come in handy to feel its soothing influence after a hard day in HQ."

"Ah! The mural."

"Yes. And I did find it soothing. Very much so." Straker ran a hand through his hair. "I wanted to meet her. I don't know. I guess I subconsciously wanted to thank her for making my job a little easier."

He laid his head on his upraised knees and sighed. "I should never have gone."

"What happened?"

"She was as soothing as her art. More so, in fact. She wasn't a beautiful woman. At first glance, she almost seemed plain. But she wasn't. I couldn't take my eyes off her. Everything about her was beautiful. She shouldn't have been. Her features were quite unremarkable. But somehow . . . she overwhelmed me.

"We talked for hours. And I could have sat and talked with her forever without ever noticing the passage of time. I'd never before felt so content in another person's presence. No, that's wrong. I had. But it had been so very long since I'd experienced such a feeling. It certainly was one I never expected to feel again."

"Your mother?" the doctor guessed.

Straker nodded, swallowing before he continued. "She was shaken up by the incident with the alien, of course. But she had that unflappable Scottish pragmatism in abundance, and she was able to accept everything I explained to her with very little astonishment."

"A wise woman."

"Yes." The commander smiled softly for a moment as he remembered. Then his face regained its haunted expression. "I still don't know how it happened. No matter how many times I've gone over it through the years, there doesn't seem to be a single defining moment. A moment when I decided one way or the other. It didn't happen like that. Instead, one minute we were talking. And then . . . we weren't."

He was silent a long time before saying, "I have no excuse for my behavior. It was entirely reprehensible of me to have taken advantage of her like that. And yet . . . I stood at her bedroom window for the longest time while she slept, staring out at the lake in the moonlight and frantically trying to find some way to run away with her. Disappear somewhere we'd never be found. Desert SHADO. Abandon everything. Just take her and go. It was insane, I know. But I wasted a lot of time trying to think of a way to do it."

He unconsciously rubbed his forehead against his knees, as if to soothe a headache festering beneath the skin. "Finally, I had to take the amnesia drug out of my pocket and administer it to her. It was nearly dawn, and there just wasn't any other option left. When I got back to HQ, I spent the morning writing up the report. Suitably edited, of course. Cleared my desk, and went home early for once.

"I thought I might take Mary out to dinner. Get a sitter for John and just go out on the town. I wanted to atone, I guess. Not so much for my unfaithfulness, because try as I would, I couldn't be sorry for that. But for thinking about abandoning her. And our son. I wasn't raised to turn my back on my obligations, and I felt pretty awful for even entertaining the idea for a moment."

"Where did you take her?"

Straker laughed harshly. "That's it, Jackson. Think positively!" He shook his head slowly. "She wasn't there. They'd gone. There was a set of divorce papers and another of those packets on the table from her mother's detective friend detailing my clandestine activities for the past month. We'd been training personnel for Moonbase. I have to tell you, the pictures looked pretty damning. I'd have believed them myself if I hadn't known better."

"What did you do about it?"

The commander shrugged. "What could I do? I could hardly contest it, could I? Demand that I was innocent? I wasn't, was I? Oh, sure. I hadn't had the assortment of lovers the evidence made it look like I had. But I had been unfaithful. Once. But that's all it takes, isn't it? Just once. It was funny."

"What was, Commander?"

"Finding those papers there like that, with no warning – it should have devastated me. Made me feel betrayed in the worst way. But that wasn't what I felt at all. Instead, all I kept thinking was that I wished it had happened the day before. Before I'd gone to Scotland."

**Epilogue**

"Did you ever try to contact Miss Kerr?"

Straker shook his head wearily. "What good would that have done? She wouldn't have remembered me. And I'd just gone through a very ugly divorce. One that – no matter how I tried to deny it – she'd played a part in. Later, when I'd had some time to come to terms with all of that, I did look her up."

The commander was silent so long that Jackson prompted him. "And?"

"Hmmm? Oh. She had married. A local man she'd apparently known for years. I put it away. What else could I do?" He slid down onto the bed as if too tired to remain sitting.

"What happened two weeks ago to bring it all back, Commander?" Jackson persisted, knowing that if he let the commander stop now to rest, he'd have to start all over in the morning.

"Her divorce became final."

"Ah!"

"No, Jackson. There's no 'ah!' to it!" the commander said bitterly. "How do you ever go back? Undo everything that went wrong and make it right? It's too late for that. Far too late to fix any of it. But my mind wouldn't leave it alone! I found that I couldn't sit in my office without the mural taunting me at my back, reminding me of her sweetness, her soothing presence. And at night when I tried to sleep, I'd wake from dreams of her, aching and calling out her name. I couldn't . . . function like that. But I knew it would pass. Eventually, without my being aware of it, it would fade into the background so that I didn't even notice it much anymore. It had happened before. It was just a matter of time. All I had to do was wait it out."

"I see," Dr. Jackson said softly as everything became clear. "Until you saw a report that said that the aliens were trying to go back to Loch Mhor. And you knew someone would have to go out there to investigate."

The commander abruptly turned his face into the pillow, his body shaken with sobs all the more violent for being silent. "I can't," he murmured brokenly. "I can't do it. I can't face her. She's not my mother. She would have no incentive to forgive me for betraying her so utterly – even if I could explain. Which I can't!"

"Perhaps you won't have to," said the doctor softly. "Col. Lake is already there, investigating the area. Your presence shouldn't be required at all."

"Good." And the commander gave a great sigh and relaxed for the first time in several days, letting his body slide into sleep.

He walked down the corridor on his way to the Control Room feeling more rested than he'd felt in weeks. He didn't know if Jackson had sedated him or not, but in the end he was merely grateful for the uninterrupted sleep. His mind was – if not at peace – at least quiet.

"Good afternoon, Commander."

He gave a slight smile to the diminutive operative who spoke to him as they passed one another in the corridor. "How are you, Lt. Wheland?"

She brightened at being addressed. "Fine, sir. And you?"

Straker's smile widened. "Fine, thank you."

Meg watched him continue on his way, pleased that one good thing had come out of her long night. The commander was back at work once more.

He nodded to Ford at the communications station on his way to his office. The lieutenant gave him a smile and a nod in return. When he entered the office, he was surprised to see that the mess had already been cleaned up. The only evidence of his loss of control was a small nick on the corner of his leather chair.

And the blank wall behind his desk, of course. He'd have to do something about that soon. Maybe he'd go back to that gallery in London that had sold him his mural all those years ago. They might still carry her work. Maybe he could find another light mural that he liked.

As he sat down, he realized that he wanted to have that soothing presence once more to help him get through his days. It had been foolish to destroy it. After having spoken for the very first time about his feelings concerning her, he found that it didn't hurt as much to think of her. Instead of a guilty secret that he'd kept hidden away even from himself, he could now see that she had merely been a particularly bright point in his rather boring life. And he was grateful that he'd known her, even for just that one evening.

He pulled the stack of reports on his desk closer and opened the top one. And if he secretly wished for a cup of coffee instead of the weak tea that was all he was allowed – well. He refused to feel guilty about it.


End file.
